Unknown Armies: The Highwayman (new archetype)

Attributes: The Highwayman lives on the margins of society. If there’s something they want, they take it. Sometimes they correct social injustice by appropriating wealth from people who hoard it through dishonorable means. Other times they’re social parasites that prey on people who have nothing. Sometimes they’re social parasites who inexplicably acquire reputations as Robin Hood-style characters.

Like the Two Faced Man, the name Highwayman is a holdover and not restricted to one sex. Some female avatars call themselves “Outlaws” instead.

The path of a Highwayman typically ends before they reach a high Avatar score. They either get caught, get killed, or retire and taboo into normalcy.

Taboo: The Highwayman can’t have a real job. They must support themselves through illegal means, only peripherally participating in the economy of the civilized world: buying booze, cheap food, time in a brothel, prepaid cell phones, etc. Deniable payments made with cash. No making a down payment for a house; you have to buy that with a briefcase full of money or a solid gold statue gifted to the right HOA board member.

Historically, being an outlaw literally meant you were outside the law. Anyone could kill you and face zero legal repercussions for it. Today this aspect of the archetype is more about having at least one active warrant.

Symbols: Black hoods, pistols held ‘gangsta-style’ and pointed through your car (or stagecoach) window, domino masks, gold chains, burlap sacks filled with loot, a luxury car with a garish paint job, a stolen horse, rings you could use like brass knuckles, gold teeth or any prosthetic made with precious metals, a bycoket hat, thick cloaks, ponchos with geometric designs.

Suspected Avatars in History: The American Wild West was full of them, as was the Golden Age of Piracy; Bonnie and Clyde, Dick Turpin, Lampião, Ned Kelly, Phoolan Devi.

Masks: Robin Hood, Zorro, The Highwayman from Over the Garden Wall, Dismas from Darkest Dungeon, Wat the Wayfarer from Devil in a Forest, Omar from The Wire.

Channels

1%-50%: Eyes on the Prize: The most important part of highway robbery is being in the right place at the right time. You can roll against your avatar identity to get an idea of where the next big score will be. You’ll need to find out what it is, who’s got it, and who’s guarding it yourself.

If you use this channel in an area you know contains stuff worth stealing, you get a hint as to where it’s hidden - whether that be a secret compartment or secreted on someone’s person.

51%-70%: Your Money or Your Life: A successful robbery is all about intimidation. You won't last long if you have to fight every time. If you succeed at coercion and the roll is equal to or less than your avatar rating, you can put an experience check on your avatar identity and add 1 to the stress rank of the coercion attempt. If that’s not enough to punch through the target’s hardened notches, you can add an additional rank by acting on the threat you made - cutting off the tip of a finger if coercing Violence, someone casting a spell if coercing Unnatural, etc. If your avatar identity also is your obsession, this channel gives you a +10% shift to all coercion rolls.

If you use this channel to improve a coercion attempt and don’t follow through on the threat, you break taboo and lose 1d5 avatar points. You can still let people off the hook if they acquiesce.

71%-90%: Next Round’s on Me: Highwaymen aren’t good at hanging on to money, or investing it sensibly. They’d rather piss it all away on extravagant displays of wealth, either for themselves or for everyone. In order to use this channel you need ill-gotten gains. The effect depends on how you spend them.

• You can spend it all on yourself. A gaudy outfit, a cool new weapon, a fancy car, an exotic pet. Whatever you choose, make an Avatar roll. On a pass, whatever stupid thing you buy becomes a minor magickal artifact with weak but thematically fitting powers and a number of uses equal to the tens die.

• You can spread your money around. A round for everyone in a bar, turkeys for Christmas or Thanksgiving, etc. Everyone eats and drinks on your score. Any avatar roll besides a fumble or matched failure makes a good impression. A success has two effects:
• If someone tries to get you while you’re still there, the crowd riots to protect you.
 Make a riot roll and treat any result of 50 or less after modifiers as if it was a 51.
  
• Afterwards, if someone asks the people you bribed for information about you, they feign ignorance, then warn you that someone is after you.


91%-98%: The Getaway: In historical Britain, highwaymen died out as “a stone net fell across England,” that stone net being a metaphor for the diminishing amount of unowned lands and forest for highwaymen to strike from and run to. And also a lot of actual walls made out of stone. You suffer from no such weakness.

When you’re in trouble, you can roll your avatar identity to leave. It’s basically teleportation, but with two limitations: you have to be in actual danger, and it only takes you to the nearest safe place. You can’t pick where you go unless you roll a matched success or crit. You can bring along one person for each point off your avatar identity you’re willing to burn.

If you use this power on a job, and escape without getting the loot, it breaks taboo.

EXAMPLE NPC: James Murphy

“Miss Murphy” started out as a ward of the state until she got sick of the foster care system and ran away. She fell in with a gang, acting as their good luck charm. The first time they gave her a gun to threaten someone, it was as a joke. Then they saw the ruthlessness in her eyes and heard a chill in her voice they’d never heard before. 

Personality: Withdrawn and spaced-out, chatty and eager if someone makes a genuine attempt to connect with her, has “resting about-to-cry face.”
Rage: Hoarders. Whether it’s money, trinkets, or animals, things are meant to be shared.
Noble: Don’t kill people you don’t have to.
Fear: That everyone secretly hates her or is using her as a means to an end (Isolation)
Obsession: The world dealt her a shit hand. She’s going to prove it wrong out of spite.
Wound Threshold: 50 

Former Street Kid 60%*: Of course I can hide/run from the cops, find things while dumpster diving, get kids and drifters to trust me (Subs Secrecy, Coerces Violence, Provides Firearms Attacks) *obsession identity
The Highwayman 60%: (Avatar, Casts Rituals, Uses Gutter Magick)

Notches	Violence	Unnatural	Helplessness	Isolation	Self
Hardened	3	4	3	2	1
Failed	2	0	0	1	0

Appearance: James has short, dark brown hair, and rocks a camo-green trench coat with extra pockets sewn into it. It used to be too big for her, but she’s grown into it.  

Possessions: A gun that belonged to her last target (she ditches them whenever she has a chance to pick up/steal a replacement); a backpack filled with loose change, snack bars, and random junk from bartering with homeless people; a change of clothes and spare balaclavas in case she throws up in one or gets blood on it; a bottle of bleach, scrub-brush, and other cleaning supplies. 

WHAT YOU HEAR

James is rounding up every member of her old gang for the biggest job she’s ever run: robbing an extremely reclusive local charger. Known as Koschei in the occult underground, there are rumors that he’s some kind of vampire. No one knows if his lair is empty, or if he’s just taking a decade’s long nap. Everyone’s too afraid of his gothic-styled security systems to check. The going theory is that Ms. Murphy has identified when Koschei has to renew the magickal wards protecting his stuff. Others think it’s the arrival time of an avatar of the Messenger, come to deliver the lich king an important (and distracting) piece of information. Is your cabal a bunch of bad enough dudes to beat James and her gang to the loot? Maybe you want to team up with them for a share of the prize. Or you could barge in to defend Koschei’s interests in hopes of gaining his favor.

This is the first thing I've written for Unknown Armies. Special thanks to mellonbread and Bird Bailey for their encouragement and editing help turning this from a silly idea into an actual writeup.